MUMBAI: State housingminister Prakash Mehta has sanctioned an SRA proposal which allows extra building rights granted to slumdwellers at the MP Mill Compound in Tardeo to be transferred to a scheme for project-affected people (PAPs), a move which goes against development control norms, RTI documents show. The decision would generate additional building rights worth over Rs 500 crore to be sold on the market for the developer, S D Corporation.

Mehta went ahead with the decision even though a housing department note in June pointed out that development control rules did not support it. “There is no provision in the DC rules that allows benefits granted to eligible slumdwellers to be withdrawn or transferred,” the note said.

However, Mehta sanctioned the proposal by signing on the very same note, saying he had informed chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, chairperson of the Slum Rehabilitation Authority. “Proposal should take general body resolution (GBR) of society. The government will get PAPs. The chief minister has been informed. This is being permitted on accepting the PAPs,” says Mehta’s noting on June 21st, show the RTI documents sourced by TOI.

After queries from TOI, Fadnavis countered Mehta, called for the file and stayed the scheme at 3pm on Tuesday.

He also denied any prior knowledge of the decision. “The SRA didn’t implement the file since it was neither sent to me nor signed by me. It was submitted to me for concurrence where I have asked to stay the entire proposal. Government will not allow anything which is not part of the policy or the rules,” Fadnavis said.

Meanwhile, Mehta told TOI that his approval was conditional to the slumdwellers resolution forfeiting their claim. “The developer had already built the free sale area. If the slum society did not want more area, at least the state should get a PAP tenement out of this,” said Mehta. He denied any knowledge of the housing department’s objections, even though he had signed his approval on its note. “Housing department did not have objections. If they have any issues, they will get back to me,” he said.

Under the SRA scheme, a developer who has the consent of 70% residents in a slum can rehabilitate them free of cost in new buildings on a portion of the plot. In exchange, he is allowed to build towers for sale in the open market on the same plot.

The MP Mill compound slum scheme, sanctioned in 1996, paved the way for the construction of the 60-storey Imperial Towers, among the most elite addresses in the city. To get these free sale building rights, the developer had to build tenements for 2,334 slum dwellers in the compound. S D Corporation is a joint venture of the Shapoorji Pallonji Group and builder Dilip Thacker.

In 2009, the slum societies asked for an expansion of their tenements from 225 to 269 square feet, termed a conversion. As a result of the extra construction for the 2,334 slumdwellers, the developer had to build 1.1 lakh square feet for the tenements and gained 82,764 square feet of building rights for free sale. At market rates, this is worth around Rs 580 crore.

However, on March 4, S D Corporation wrote to the SRA chief saying it was in the process of consuming the additional free sale component in building a tower even though it had not completed the tenement expansion. While 300 tenements were being expanded, the rest of the slumdwellers were no longer interested in the expansion, it claimed. Instead, the developer offered to build the balance area of 95,762 square feet once meant for the expansion, as a PAP building instead.

The then SRA chief, Vishwas Patil, moved this very proposal to the state government on April 13. He said that according to the developer, 1,969 slumdwellers were no longer interested in expanding their tenements. So the balance area once due to them should now be transferred to a PAP construction of 306 tenements.

However, the free sale component generated should continue be exploited at M P Mill Compound, he said. At 71,822 square feet, this is worth around Rs 500 crore.

“This is totally illegal. If slumdwellers forfeit their rights for an expansion, then the free sale component generated should also lapse,” pointed out urban planner Chandrashekhar Prabhu. “There is no law which allows you to transfer their building rights to another project,” he said.

“This essentially means you have deprived the slumdwellers in whose name the additional building rights were generated. And you have shifted their rights somewhere else, so the builder gets to make a Rs 500 crore bonanza,” he alleged.

The state housing department raised several queries on Vishwas Patil’s proposal. It questioned the authenticity of the claim that 1,969 slumdwellers no longer wanted to expand their tenements.

“There does not seem to be any resolution from the slumdwellers saying they no longer want an expansion. The SRA only informed us that the developer says the slumdwellers are not interested,” the housing department’s note says. In fact, the housing department had raised a pointed question as to whether the SRA had independently ascertained whether the slumdwellers wanted to forfeit the extra space. The SRA responded that it had not.

The housing department finally put the ball back in the SRA CEO’s court. It said he was empowered to decide on schemes relating to SRA tenement expansions since these rights were no longer with the government. “He should take an appropriate decision within the purview of the existing DC rules,” the department said. However, the housing minister sanctioned the scheme without waiting for the SRA CEO’s response.

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